Ensure Cleanliness with Pets

While you won't catch a cold or a cough from dogs (or give them one, for that matter), you may be in for other troubles. Just keep in mind that the health benefits of cohabiting with a canine far outweigh the potential contamination. Simply petting a dog lowers your blood pressure and heart rate. And in one study of heart attack survivors, dog owners were 8.6 times more likely to be alive a year later than people without dogs. 
Illnesses that spread from pets to humans are more common than previously thought, finds a paper published this week that offers a new set of guidelines for reducing the health risks.

They advise that physicians and other health care providers should ask their patients about their pets, advising them on the risks of pet ownership and how to reduce disease threats.

These findings highlight the heightened risk in children and the potential for reptile-associated Salmonella to be transmitted without direct contact with the animal or its enclosure.

Dogs, cats and rodents can also transmit Salmonella to humans. Drug-resistant bacteria, also may be transmitted by these pets, as well as by reptiles and amphibians. Parasites like hookworm and roundworm can travel from pets to people. Infection can be contracted from bites, scratches, saliva and contact with faeces.

The researchers aren't suggesting that people give up their pets. Many studies over the years have shown that pet ownership offers many health benefits, and may even trigger the release of the beneficial brain chemical oxytocin, known as the "love hormone."

Patients at high risk and their households should have increased vigilance of their pets' health and take precautions to reduce pathogen transmission.

We can spread some illnesses to our pets as well so following cleanliness procedures will help to keep our pets healthy too.